History of Julius Caesar Part 14

He thought, probably, that these pretexts would tend to quiet the strong and turbulent spirits around him, from whose envy or rivalry he had most to fear, without at all interfering with the effect which the act itself would have produced upon the ma.s.ses of the population. He wished, in a word, to accustom them to see him a.s.sume the position and the bearing of a sovereign, while, by his apparent humility in his intercourse with those immediately around him, he avoided as much as possible irritating and arousing the jealous and watchful rivals who were next to him in power.

[Sidenote: Progress of Caesar's plans.]

If this were his plan, it seemed to be advancing prosperously toward its accomplishment. The population of the city seemed to become more and more familiar with the idea that Caesar was about to become a king. The opposition which the idea had at first awakened appeared to subside, or, at least, the public expression of it, which daily became more and more determined and dangerous, was restrained. At length the time arrived when it appeared safe to introduce the subject to the Roman Senate.

This, of course, was a hazardous experiment. It was managed, however, in a very adroit and ingenious manner.

[Sidenote: The Sibylline books.]

[Sidenote: Declaration of the Sibylline books.]

[Sidenote: Plan for crowning Caesar.]

There were in Rome, and, in fact, in many other cities and countries of the world in those days, a variety of prophetic books, called the Sibylline Oracles, in which it was generally believed that future events were foretold. Some of these volumes or rolls, which were very ancient and of great authority, were preserved in the temples at Rome, under the charge of a board of guardians, who were to keep them with the utmost care, and to consult them on great occasions, in order to discover beforehand what would be the result of public measures or great enterprises which were in contemplation. It happened that at this time the Romans were engaged in a war with the Parthians, a very wealthy and powerful nation of Asia. Caesar was making preparations for an expedition to the East to attempt to subdue this people. He gave orders that the Sibylline Oracles should be consulted. The proper officers, after consulting them with the usual solemn ceremonies, reported to the Senate that they found it recorded in these sacred prophecies that the Parthians could not be conquered except by a _king_, A senator proposed, therefore, that, to meet the emergency, Caesar should be made king during the war. There was at first no decisive action on this proposal.

It was dangerous to express any opinion. People were thoughtful, serious, and silent, as on the eve of some great convulsion. No one knew what others were meditating, and thus did not dare to express his own wishes or designs. There soon, however, was a prevailing understanding that Caesar's friends were determined on executing the design of crowning him, and that the fifteenth of March, called, in their phraseology, the _Ides of March_, was fixed upon as the coronation day.

[Sidenote: The conspiracy.]

In the mean time, Caesar's enemies, though to all outward appearance quiet and calm, had not been inactive. Finding that his plans were now ripe for execution, and that they had no, open means of resisting them, they formed a conspiracy to a.s.sa.s.sinate Caesar himself, and thus bring his ambitious schemes to an effectual and final end. The name of the original leader of this conspiracy was Ca.s.sius.

[Sidenote: Ca.s.sius.]

Ca.s.sius had been for a long time Caesar's personal rival and enemy. He was a man of a very violent and ardent temperament, impetuous and fearless, very fond of exercising power himself, but very restless and uneasy in having it exercised over him. He had all the Roman repugnance to being under the authority of a master, with an additional personal determination of his own not to submit to Caesar. He determined to slay Caesar rather than to allow him to be made a king, and he went to work, with great caution, to bring other leading and influential men to join him in this determination. Some of those to whom he applied said that they would unite with him in his plot provided he would get Marcus Brutus to join them.

[Sidenote: Marcus Brutus.]

Brutus was the praetor of the city. The praetors.h.i.+p of the city was a very high munic.i.p.al office. The conspirators wished to have Brutus join them partly on account of his station as a magistrate, as if they supposed that by having the highest public magistrate of the city for their leader in the deed, the destruction of their victim would appear less like a murder, and would be invested, instead, in some respects, with the sanctions and with the dignity of an official execution.

[Sidenote: Character of Brutus.]

[Sidenote: His firmness and courage.]

Then, again, they wished for the moral support which would be afforded them in their desperate enterprise by Brutus's extraordinary personal character. He was younger than Ca.s.sius, but he was grave, thoughtful, taciturn, calm--a man of inflexible integrity, of the coolest determination, and, at the same time, of the most undaunted courage. The conspirators distrusted one another, for the resolution of impetuous men is very apt to fail when the emergency arrives which puts it to the test; but as for Brutus, they knew very well that whatever he undertook he would most certainly do.

[Sidenote: The ancient Brutus.]

[Sidenote: His expulsion of the kings.]

There was a great deal even in his name. It was a Brutus that five centuries before had been the main instrument of the expulsion of the Roman kings. He had secretly meditated the design, and, the better to conceal it, had feigned idiocy, as the story was, that he might not be watched or suspected until the favorable hour for executing his design should arrive. He therefore ceased to speak, and seemed to lose his reason; he wandered about the city silent and gloomy, like a brute. His name had been Lucius Junius before. They added Brutus now, to designate his condition. When at last, however, the crisis arrived which he judged favorable for the expulsion of the kings, he suddenly rea.s.sumed his speech and his reason, called the astonished Romans to arms, and triumphantly accomplished his design. His name and memory had been cherished ever since that day as of a great deliverer.

[Sidenote: The history of Brutus.]

They, therefore, who looked upon Caesar as another king, naturally turned their thoughts to the Brutus of their day, hoping to find in him another deliverer. Brutus found, from time to time, inscriptions on his ancient namesake's statue expressing the wish that he were now alive. He also found each morning, as he came to the tribunal where he was accustomed to sit in the discharge of the duties of his office, brief writings, which had been left there during the night, in which few words expressed deep meaning, such as "Awake, Brutus, to thy duty;" and "Art thou indeed a Brutus?"

[Sidenote: His obligations to Caesar.]

[Sidenote: Caesar's friends.h.i.+p for Brutus.]

Still it seemed hardly probable that Brutus could be led to take a decided stand against Caesar, for they had been warm personal friends ever since the conclusion of the civil wars. Brutus had, indeed, been on Pompey's side while that general lived; he fought with him at the battle of Pharsalia, but he had been taken prisoner there, and Caesar, instead of executing him as a traitor, as most victorious generals in a civil war would have done, spared his life, forgave him for his hostility, received him into his own service, and afterward raised him to very high and honorable stations. He gave him the government of the richest province, and, after his return from it, loaded with wealth and honors, he made him praetor of the city. In a word, it would seem that he had done every thing which it was possible to do to make him one of his most trustworthy and devoted friends. The men, therefore, to whom Ca.s.sius first applied, perhaps thought that they were very safe in saying that they would unite in the intended conspiracy if he would get Brutus to join them. They expected Ca.s.sius himself to make the attempt to secure the co-operation of Brutus, as Ca.s.sius was on terms of intimacy with him on account of a family connection. Ca.s.sius's wife was the sister of Brutus. This had made the two men intimate a.s.sociates and warm friends in former years, though they had been recently somewhat estranged from each other on account of having been compet.i.tors for the same offices and honors. In these contests Caesar had decided in favor of Brutus.

"Ca.s.sius," said he, on one such occasion, "gives the best reasons; but I can not refuse Brutus any thing he asks for." In fact, Caesar had conceived a strong personal friends.h.i.+p for Brutus, and believed him to be entirely devoted to his cause.

[Sidenote: Interview between Brutus and Ca.s.sius.]

Ca.s.sius, however, sought an interview with Brutus, with a view of engaging him in his design. He easily effected his own reconciliation with him, as he had himself been the offended party in their estrangement from each other. He asked Brutus whether he intended to be present in the Senate on the Ides of March, when the friends of Caesar, as was understood, were intending to present him with the crown. Brutus said he should not be there. "But suppose," said Ca.s.sius, "we are specially summoned." "Then," said Brutus, "I shall go, and shall be ready to die if necessary to defend the liberty of my country."

[Sidenote: Arguments of Ca.s.sius.]

Ca.s.sius then a.s.sured Brutus that there were many other Roman citizens, of the highest rank, who were animated by the same determination, and that they all looked up to him to lead and direct them in the work which it was now very evident must be done. "Men look," said Ca.s.sius, "to other praetors to entertain them with games, spectacles, and shows, but they have very different ideas in respect to you. Your character, your name, your position, your ancestry, and the course of conduct which you have already always pursued, inspire the whole city with the hope that you are to be their deliverer. The citizens are all ready to aid you, and to sustain you at the hazard of their lives; but they look to you to go forward, and to act in their name and in their behalf, in the crisis which is now approaching."

[Sidenote: Effect on Brutus.]

[Sidenote: Brutus engages in the conspiracy.]

Men of a very calm exterior are often susceptible of the profoundest agitations within, the emotions seeming to be sometimes all the more permanent and uncontrollable from the absence of outward display. Brutus said little, but his soul was excited and fired by Ca.s.sius's words.

There was a struggle in his soul between his grateful sense of his political obligations to Caesar and his personal attachment to him on the one hand, and, on the other, a certain stern Roman conviction that every thing should be sacrificed, even friends.h.i.+p and grat.i.tude, as well as fortune and life, to the welfare of his country. He acceded to the plan, and began forthwith to enter upon the necessary measures for putting it into execution.

[Sidenote: Ligurius.]

There was a certain general, named Ligurius, who had been in Pompey's army, and whose hostility to Caesar had never been really subdued. He was now sick. Brutus went to see him. He found him in his bed. The excitement in Rome was so intense, though the expressions of it were suppressed and restrained, that every one was expecting continually some great event, and every motion and look was interpreted to have some deep meaning. Ligurius read in the countenance of Brutus, as he approached his bedside, that he had not come on any trifling errand. "Ligurius,"

said Brutus, "this is not a time for _you_ to be sick." "Brutus,"

replied Ligurius, rising at once from his couch, "if you have any enterprise in mind that is worthy of you, I am well." Brutus explained to the sick man their design, and he entered into it with ardor.

[Sidenote: Consultations of the conspirators.]

[Sidenote: Their bold plan.]

[Sidenote: Final arrangements.]

The plan was divulged to one after another of such men as the conspirators supposed most worthy of confidence in such a desperate undertaking, and meetings for consultation were held to determine what plan to adopt for finally accomplis.h.i.+ng their end. It was agreed that Caesar must be slain; but the time, the place, and the manner in which the deed should be performed were all yet undecided. Various plans were proposed in the consultations which the conspirators held; but there was one thing peculiar to them all, which was, that they did not any of them contemplate or provide for any thing like secrecy in the commission of the deed. It was to be performed in the most open and public manner.

With a stern and undaunted boldness, which has always been considered by mankind as truly sublime, they determined that, in respect to the actual execution itself of the solemn judgment which they had p.r.o.nounced, there should be nothing private or concealed. They thought over the various public situations in which they might find Caesar, and where they might strike him down, only to select the one which would be most public of all. They kept, of course, their preliminary counsels private, to prevent the adoption of measures for counteracting them; but they were to perform the deed in such a manner as that, so soon as it was performed, they should stand out to view, exposed fully to the gaze of all mankind as the authors, of it. They planned no retreat, no concealment, no protection whatever for themselves, seeming to feel that the deed which they were about to perform, of destroying the master and monarch of the world, was a deed in its own nature so grand and sublime as to raise the perpetrators of it entirely above all considerations relating to their own personal safety. Their plan, therefore, was to keep their consultations and arrangements secret until they were prepared to strike the blow, then to strike it in the most public and imposing manner possible, and calmly afterward to await the consequences.

[Sidenote: The place and the day.]

In this view of the subject, they decided that the chamber of the Roman Senate was the proper place, and the Ides of March, the day on which he was appointed to be crowned, was the propel time for Caesar to be slain.

CHAPTER XII.

THE a.s.sa.s.sINATION.

[Sidenote: Caesar receives many warnings of his approaching fate.]

According to the account given by his historians, Caesar received many warnings of his approaching fate, which, however, he would not heed.

Many of these warnings were strange portents and prodigies, which the philosophical writers who recorded them half believed themselves, and which they were always ready to add to their narratives even if they did not believe them, on account of the great influence which such an introduction of the supernatural and the divine had with readers in those days in enhancing the dignity and the dramatic interest of the story. These warnings were as follows:

[Sidenote: The tomb and inscription.]

At Capua, which was a great city at some distance south of Rome, the second, in fact, in Italy, and the one which Hannibal had proposed to make his capital, some workmen were removing certain ancient sepulchers to make room for the foundations of a splendid edifice which, among his other plans for the embellishment of the cities of Italy, Caesar was intending to have erected there. As the excavations advanced, the workmen came at last to an ancient tomb, which proved to be that of the original founder of Capua; and, in bringing out the sarcophagus, they found an inscription, worked upon a bra.s.s plate, and in the Greek character, predicting that if those remains were ever disturbed, a great member of the Julian family would be a.s.sa.s.sinated by his own friends, and his death would be followed by extended devastations throughout all Italy.

[Sidenote: Caesar's horses.]

The horses, too, with which Caesar had pa.s.sed the Rubicon, and which had been, ever since that time, living in honorable retirement in a splendid park which Caesar had provided for them, by some mysterious instinct, or from some divine communication, had warning of the approach of their great benefactor's end. They refused their food, and walked about with melancholy and dejected looks, mourning apparently, and in a manner almost human, some impending grief.

[Sidenote: The soothsayers.]

There was a cla.s.s of prophets in those days called by a name which has been translated _soothsayers_. These soothsayers were able, as was supposed, to look somewhat into futurity--dimly and doubtfully, it is true, but really, by means of certain appearances exhibited by the bodies of the animals offered in sacrifices These soothsayers were consulted on all important occasions; and if the auspices proved unfavorable when any great enterprise was about to be undertaken, it was often, on that account, abandoned or postponed. One of these soothsayers, named Spurinna, came to Caesar one day, and informed him that he had found, by means of a public sacrifice which he had just been offering, that there was a great and mysterious danger impending over him, which was connected in some way with the Ides of March, and he counseled him to be particularly cautious and circ.u.mspect until that day should have pa.s.sed.